


A Secret Beauty

by LittleRaven



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Implied Sexual Content, Meaningful Hand-Touches, Regency Romance, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25851439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: The sea was so wide, and there was more beauty in it than she could see when limited to the palace, or her short trips to the surface.
Relationships: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid/Heksen | Sea Witch
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: The Prince Regent's Birthday Regency/Victorian Flash Exchange





	A Secret Beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



The sands were dull, belying the angry whirlpools which lay beyond them. Behind her, her father's coral palace was filled with the sweet light sounds of her sisters' singing; she could still hear them as the ball carried on without her. Let it, she thought. They would not notice, then, that she had darted through the open doors as soon as her own performance had ended, rather than remain among the crowd. 

Balls were beautiful, and all said the ones her father hosted were the best the royal family had put on since as long as anyone could remember. Her grandmother was proud of it, rightly too as she was the one to arrange them. His youngest daughter would not deny it. 

Yet she was not content to have her dancing, and her singing, and her little garden plot beside those of her sisters. The sea was so wide, and there was more beauty in it than she could see when limited to the palace, or her short trips to the surface. 

The mermaid bound up her long hair—she did not like the way the pearl wreath tugged at it, hurting her head, but getting through the whirlpools was less risky if she employed that trick, and she very much wanted to get to the other side. Her heart beat faster. 

Next, the polyp forest. She was used to it, and no longer trembled as their tentacles reached in vain to take her arms, her hair, the fins of her tail. 

Her trembling came once she reached the clearing. There was the reason for her repeated journeys. There was the reason she was grateful for the endless court balls, as monotonous as they had become to her now. There, sitting upon the sand, letting her snakes curl on her lap!

Beauty which could not be found in a coral palace. Her hair was wild, for she never bound it up, and her laugh filled the heart more than any sound the little mermaid had ever heard; she found she had quite forgotten that of her sisters’ voices, or even her own, any time she heard this one.

She reached for the pearls in her own hair, and cast off the wreath, fingers clumsy with impatience. It floated to the sand. One of the snakes looked up from sleep and set off to play with it. 

“How careless you are with it! I should start a collection,” her smiling witch observed. 

“If you like,” the little mermaid said. It never mattered how many wreaths, or combs, she left here; the palace was an endless resource of pearl-giving mussels. 

She swam faster now, with no obstacles to pick her way around, and finally her tail curled underneath her as she sat beside the witch. Her eyes fell upon the witch’s hands, light upon the snake that still rested in her lap. That was another thing she liked about her: the way her hands moved quick and sure when touching the large creatures so many saw as foul. 

“You still haven’t told me your price for the stories I ask of you.” The debt grew each visit, yet she found she did not care. Long evenings had she spent hearing of the world above and below, from that rich voice which never sung and yet had a rhythm and music all its own. On some nights she thought of her family, who seemed to fear the witch as much as she once had, but so far that hadn’t stopped her, and the possibility of it doing so lessened every time she chose to steal away. Her witch was no lady, the court whispered when it talked of her at all, learning secret things and collecting more objects from the human world above than other merfolk cared for, even those who sometimes indulged their curiosity for the land. Not a fitting companion for a princess, even the one who was youngest; who knew what the girl might pick up, what might be done to her in the seclusion of the witch’s forest? 

It was not a lady’s companion that the princess wanted, though she did desire her company. 

“Yes. My price.” The witch continued to smile. “I think that too will take the form of a story you will learn for the first time.” Her hand stopped its caresses, and the snake went to join its fellow with the wreath. She lifted it, then, and put it on the little mermaid’s own. “Would you like me to tell it?”

The princess watched the hand, felt its roughness, looked up at the witch’s face. “You know I would.” She wanted every story, every thing that hand, that smile, had to show her. 

“I don’t hear a yes.” 

“Yes,” she said, and with the next sounds the witch wanted being of an altogether different sort, that was the last word the little mermaid gave her for a very long while.


End file.
